"You charge for conversation!" Remo exploded.
The cabbie beamed. "It is the American way, is it not?"
"No, it is not. U.S. cabbies don't charge for conversation."
"In this, I am mistaken. It is the Russian way."
"Let me show you the American way," offered Remo. "Here's your money, and here's a reminder of the old adage that says 'Be nice to tourists.'"
And reaching forward, Remo handed the man his steering wheel, which came off its column with a brittle snap.
They left the cabbie bellowing about the exorbitant price of spare parts in capitalist Russia.
Walking the slushy length of Tverskaya Street, Remo told Chiun, "See anything that looks suspicious to you?"
"Yes," said Chiun.
"Where?"
"That place," said the Master of Sinanju, pointing to a basement place of business with a faded-gilt sign over the glass door that said Iz Tsvetoka.
"What's that mean in English?"
"'From the little flowers.'"
"What's so funny about that?"
"In Italian it would be 'Del Floria.'"
Remo frowned. "Sounds familiar. But I don't see the connection."
"You will," said Chiun, turning abruptly to pad down the stone steps. The door chime tinkled when he padded in, Remo a half step behind him.
Pausing, Remo saw that it was a tailor shop. A frazzle-haired old man was bent over the steaming 1950s-style pants presser. He looked up querulously and said, "Do'bree den."
Chiun replied in a volley of fluent Russian, and the frazzle-haired old man suddenly pulled a pistol and tried to kill them.
Chiun ducked the first bullet and let Remo handle the second. Remo sidestepped it easily, flying across the scarred counter, disarming the old man with a casual slap that left the attacker clutching a hand seemingly turning scarlet from sunburn but which was actually hemorrhaging at every capillary.
"Sukin syn! Sukin syn!" the old man screamed. "He is calling you an offspring of a female dog," Chiun said.
"I get the idea," Remo responded, rendering the old man unconscious with a neck squeeze. "Why the hell did he try to kill you?"
"Because I commanded him to take me to his leader."
"Leader. As in Martian?"
"As in the organization for which he maintains this flimsy blind."
"How do you know this is a blind? It looks like a regular tailor shop."
"Look around you. Is it not familiar, Remo?"
Remo glanced about. It was small, cluttered and smelled of steam and starch. In the back was a fitting room closed off by a red curtain. The curtain was the only splash of color in the dank little shop.
"Yeah. Now that you ask, it is."
"Unless I am mistaken, you will find a button concealed on the steaming device. Press it."
Remo checked out the pants presser. "I don't see anything..."
"Make steam," suggested the Master of Sinanju.
Reaching for the wooden knob atop the machine, Remo depressed it. The machine squeezed a pair of blue serge trousers and spurted steam. When he looked up, the Master of Sinanju was pushing the back wall of the fitting room around on a pivot as the red curtain finished falling back in place.
"Wait for me."
The steel panel clicked shut in Remo's face before he got to it. It resisted his touch, so Remo smacked it with a palm, and something snapped. After that, a fingertip sent the panel spinning freely.
Slipping through, Remo found himself in a reception area where a blonde in a maroon shirt and red turtleneck was bunkered down with an AK-47. She began spraying rounds in Remo's direction while flashing red wall lights and a warbling electric horn filled the area with noise and sensory confusion.
"She is yours," said Chiun, stepping out of the way so the bullet stream directed at his balding head snapped at Remo instead.
"Why is she mine?" Remo demanded.
"She is Russian, and you yearn for romance."
Chapter 24
Harold W Smith was trying to reassure the President of the United States in a calm voice.
It wasn't easy. The President seemed to be pulling in three directions at once.
"CIA is telling me they're checking with their cosmic bureau."
"Their psychics, you mean," Smith said dryly.
"The National Reconnaissance Office is trying to reconstruct the orbital situation over Cape Canaveral when the Reliant melted down. And the National Security Agency has just handed me a classified document assuring me that the letters in that damn photograph are Russian for 'Peace.'"
"I have confirmation that the Russian space station was nowhere over the Reliant or the BioBubble when they were destroyed," Smith said.
"So it's not the Russians."
"My people are looking into that angle."
"Then it is the Russians."